Hauntings in Meriden, CT

I wonder if anyone would know about the incidence of hauntings in Meriden, CT. It is my impression that Meriden is a very haunted city. Is Meriden the site of one or more historical tragedies like war battles, maybe? Possibly landslides? It strikes me as a very haunted city, even for CT. Luckily, I don't live there.

I'd seen a booklet, many years ago, published by the Meriden Record-Journal, that had many stories of local legends and myths. It's actually a pretty interesting read. The booklet mentioned the "Black Dog of The Hanging Hills", and many other Meriden stories. Maybe, if you got ahold of someone at the Record-Journal, they could tell you where to find a copy (in case your local library doesn't have a copy).

I honestly don't recall any stories about battles being fought in Meriden (the closest "war related" story I can think of is from Southington, where Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, Comte de Rochambeau camped out on his way to rendezvous with General Washington, at the Hudson River), but again, perhaps a visit to a library would help you with that. I'm sure there has to have been some skirmishes with local native tribes, as the European settlers moved in, but I've never read anything about that.

Meriden doesn't really bother me too much (I just don't really care for it); but nearby Middletown...well, that's another story! Good luck with looking for info. Let us know what you find?

...and I'm really going to be upset by the first person who swears Altobello/Undercliff is haunted. I swear I will!

isnt it though. lol

Under the wide and open sky, dig the grave and let me lie;Gladly i've lived and gladly die, away from this world of strife;This be the epitaph for me- "Here he lies where he longed to be, lies in death by the nineteenth tee, where he lied all his life"

No. It might be "creepy" and "spooky", but it isn't haunted. Most of the stories (mostly 3rd party) about the place being haunted are the results of over imaginative people, or worse...people just trying to tell "ghost stories". In all my time working there (mostly at night), and with the access to all the buildings that I had, I never had an inkling of anything paranormal in the area. It's just a very popular myth, that this place is haunted.

Besides, the subject of Altobello/Undercliff, and whether it's haunted or not was discussed (rather poorly) in a separate thread, a long time ago.

Under the wide and open sky, dig the grave and let me lie;Gladly i've lived and gladly die, away from this world of strife;This be the epitaph for me- "Here he lies where he longed to be, lies in death by the nineteenth tee, where he lied all his life"

I would think Meriden would be historically significant only because it would make a great lookout area for troop movement in the valley. But I am not aware of any major battles in the area either.

As for the Black Dog, I personally view it as a tall tale, as there is only one reported instance of seeing it and experiencing it's curse.

Supposedly Mt. Lamentation has it's own little legend, but in my research I have been unable to determine the exact location on the ridge.

You are correct, sir! I also think the Black Dog is a myth. Mt Lamentation...now there's a name I haven't heard in ages! According to Wikipedia (that internet font of knowledge!), the story behind it is this:

Lamentation Mountain takes its name from an incident in 1653 when a member of a nearby colony became lost on the mountain for three days before he was found by a search party.

Sounds rather benign, doesn't it?

According to Google Maps, Mt Lamentation (State Park) isn't part of Hubbard Park, where the Hanging Hills are located, but about 4 miles away, on the other (eastern) side of North Broad Street. It's across the road from Silver Lake.

The only stories I ever heard about Meriden were Undercliff and the Dog. Middletown, on the other hand, having CVH, is very interesting. Sadly, they have started tearing down some of the old buildings, and the rest will be gone in the next few years.

Boston, you know we love you madly,Hear the crowd roar to your sound,Don't blame us if we ever doubt you,You know we couldn't live without you, Tessie, you are the only only only (RED SOX YOU ARE THE ONLY ONES)~Dropkick Murphys

Interests:Actual Real History of Haunted Places, not the hear-say of places like the Shadowlands..

Posted 16 March 2009 - 08:30 AM

Like a lot of Connecticut towns, Meriden is pretty old. It was originally first settled in 1661 by a man named Jonathan Gilbert. It was first known as the North Farms of Wallingford, later on getting the Name of Meriden CT in 1728, and the town was incorporated in 1867. Because of its age most of the houses there are very old. Its oldest house on North Colony Rd was built in 1711. So there is a lot of history to the town, and the more history a place has, the more likely it is to be haunted. As far as battles go, there is none on record, be it doesnít mean that none took place. Before the white settlers came, no Indian tribes took claim to Meriden, however it was known to be used and visited by two main local tribes, the Mettabasset tribe from the Middletown area, and the Quinnipiac from the New Haven area. They both used the land for hunting and fishing, and people for many years have found arrowheads and other artifacts. Could these two tribes have battled over this land in the past? Itís possible, but unlikely they both respected each other for the most part, but one can never know because they never kept written records...

..Besides, the subject of Altobello/Undercliff, and whether it's haunted or not was discussed (rather poorly) in a separate thread, a long time ago.

And...you were kidding, right?

Well, to put a pin in it, let me tell you the real history of Undercliff. It was a TB hospital in the 1930's until the end of WWII when the old wooden building burned to the ground. The foundation of that old building is up on the "back road" (to the right) before going past the old garage and staff quarters (apartment building) to meet up with main road that goes to the main building -- six stories brick. That building was built and operated from the 1950's through 1975 as a Mental Health Center. To the right of it was the staff apartment building and old garage. Across from the old garage was "Cliff House" opened as DARTEC -- a drug rehab in 1972. Now, the first building that you used to see as you came into the grounds, up on the right -- a big brick building (circa 1890) -- was initially the Poor House. (Yes, really.) It had "indiginant" families living there as late as 1970 when the State officially closed the "last" Poor House and re-allocated it to the Regional Training Center that was operated in the three story building to the left where the road separated into the upper (front) and back roads. The Regional Training Center was for what was then called "Retarded Children." Between the smaller brick center (crica 1965) and the Poor House (that burned down entirely in the late 1980's) was an old wooden barn -- a holdover from the TB hospital days. It was torn down in the late 1970's, after the main hospital (the mental health center) closed.

Ok, now, there was a smaller road directly across from the Regional Training Center that had four brick houses (circa 1950) on it -- those were staff houses where the doctors and administrators lived with their families. Two of the four houses were put on wheels and moved when the highway was built that cutoff that neighborhood from Stuben Street. Before the highway came through, it was possible to walk all the way to Hubbard park on Undercliff land. Also, if you continue past the main hospital building out the old road to the water tower, you end up on West Mountain just past the pond and on the road to Castle Craig.

FYI -- The Altebello cottages were built much later in the front meadow on the other side of the brook between the highway and Undercliff Rd.

Also, the two larger houses - mansions really -- were up closer to the main building and housed the Superintendent and the Chief Physician. One of those was reinforced and used in the late 1990's early 2000's to house a mentally insane murderer -- for some strange reason -- instead of the more secure main building that included locked wards. The other house had a State Police Lt. living there -- he later got caught up in a scandal for paying very low rent, like $25 or something a month. (Look it up.)

About the main hospital. There was no morgue -- that was the kitchen on the ground floor -- notice the loading dock behind it! Those "refrigerator" drawers were for food, not bodies. That building was never used for the TB hospital -- the wooden building that burned was the TB hospital -- and minimum security mental health centers don't have their own morgues. (Undercliff was never for the criminally insane until they put that one guy in the reinforced house in the late 1990's.)

So, that's the story of Undercliff. The only true really spooky thing is that the serial murderer Hadden Clark (and his brother and father) reportedly all were patients at Undercliff. And, in the early 2000's, the CT State Police had him up from MD to look around for bodies he reportedly buried there when it was being operated by the State Police in the 1990's. Since his Grandpa operated a nursery on the East side of town (other side of town) when he was in high school and he lived with him from time-to-time, it's not implausible. What should really scare those tempted to trespass is he was up there wandering around in the 1990's when many folks on this board say they were up there, too. Sure glad none of you met him! Or, maybe someone did, and was never heard from again. Google him -- he's a really scary dude.

p.s. how do I know all this? See my label -- that was my address from 1968 to 1975. Yup, my family lived and worked on those grounds for seven long, lonely years until they closed the hospital. In those years, I hiked those grounds thoroughly and played in or visited every building. As the operations wound down, we stayed on until we were the only family left. And, then we left, too. The real shame of all this is those beautiful, valuable buildings have just been wasted into decripit wrecks, unused for so many years.